PlayStation 4 game trailers – from Killzone to DriveClub, Deep Down and Watch Dogs

GameCentral takes an in-depth look at every tech demo and preview from the PS4 reveal event and gives its verdict on the best games so far.

Killzone: Shadow Fall – not necessarily the best of the PlayStation 4

The rumours are true: the PlayStation 4 is due out this year and Sony has already unveiled a new controller and online services. We have a detailed look at the new hardware features here, but the most important thing is always going to be the games… so it’s a good job they revealed plenty of those too. We’ll take a separate look at the PlayStation 4’s hardware features, but for now here’s our first impressions of the software.

The first thing to be shown was not a game but a tech demo of Unreal Engine 4, from Gears Of War maker Epic Games. It wasn’t implied to be part of an actual game, but showed a demonic looking monster causing a massive earthquake and waking up some sort of ice giant. It looked amazing, and suggests that Unreal Engine 4 technology will be as ubiquitous on the next generation as Unreal Engine 3 has been on the current one.

Knack
The first actual game to be demoed was the completely unexpected Knack, which is being personally overseen by PlayStation 4 architect Mark Cerny. Given his background with games such as Crash Bandicoot and Ratchet & Clank it’s unsurprising to find it has a very cartoonish asthetic, and a storyline that seems to involve defending the mdoern world against an army of goblins.

Knack is the name of a small, Clank-esque robot that has the ability to grow massively in size by creating a new body out of smaller objects. His larger forms are made up of what looks like hundreds of little metal balls and other geometric shapes. This effect seems to have been inspired by an earlier tech demo where the PlayStation 4 is shown as being able to render 1 million different objects on screen without breaking a sweat.

The game seems to be a mix of action game and puzzler, with some relatively complex storytelling going on as well. It was hard to tell how exactly it’d play minute-to-minute, but we’re certainly interested in finding out.

Killzone: Shadow FallJust as it was with the PlayStation 3, one of the first game to be shown on the PlayStation 4 was from the Killzone franchise. Shadow Fall’s story has apparently been inspired by the Cold War, with the two opposing sides now living on one planet but divided by a gigantic wall. The demo was being played in real-time, with one of the developers standing, DualShock 4 in hand, playing it on stage.

The demo opened with an on-the-rails section as you fly over an ISA cityscape filled with super shiny skyscrapers and hundreds of flying cars. Landing at a security post though the Helghast let off a huge bomb, after which a number of disguised assassins reveal themselves.

At this point the game shifts into standard first person shooter mode and… we immediately began to lose interest. The graphics were good, but not necessarily amazing, while there didn’t seem to be anything extraordinary or next gen about the gameplay at all. Things picked up a bit when the developer had to jump onto an escaping dropship, giving him a far more perilous view of the city, but it still seemed very last gen in terms of design ambition.

We’re surprised that Sony decided to launch with yet another sequel to a franchise that has never really seemed to take off, and although the graphics were good – and probably impossible on the current gen – they certainly didn’t seem to be a quantum leap forward. Luckily though that wasn’t necessarily the case with the other demos.

DriveClub
This was the new driving game previously reported as a Project Gotham Racing style arcade racer; or at least it was the new game from MotorStorm developers Evolution Studios. In fact DriveClub seemed to be very much it’s own thing, with Evolution’s enthusiasm for what it calls first person team-racing almost causing the guy on stage to explode with excitement.

It’s an idea the studio has apparently had for nearly a decade (the name DriveClub was first trademarked nine years ago) and was likened to taking part in a squad-based shooter, where you’re rewarded simply for racing with other people no matter whether you actually win or not. The multiplayer options were described as asymmetric and real-time, with the ability to create challenges and race types and then immediately send them to other players.

The game itself uses a first person view for you the driver, creating an in-cockpit view by default once you get inside the car. The graphics seemed properly impressive, with Evolution even boasting of realistically rendered suede seating. There was very little in-game footage shown, but the few glimpses left any current gen racer in the dust.

inFamous: Second Son
This was at least as baffling a new game as Killzone, given that third person superhero simulator inFamous is probably even less beloved. The games are okay but we’re very surprised to find that of the four first party games Sony chose to unveil two were sequels to underwhelming current gen games.

As for Second Son, what we were shown didn’t seem to be gameplay footage, even if it was real-time. The exact connection to the first two games is unclear but the implication is that the world is being overrun with amoral superheroes and that the government is using this as an excuse to spy on its citizens and institute a kind of martial law.

Sucker Punch are a good developer so we’re automatically interested in anything they do, but we really can’t say that inFamous 3 was top of our list of most wanted sequels for the PlayStation 4. And the brief demo did little to win us over.

The Witness
After the first party games Sony unveiled a trio of what it described as indie games. The first was the new game from Braid creator Jonathan Blow, which will ‘debut on the PlayStation 4′ (i.e. it is presumably a timed exclusive). Although he’s been working on the game for three and a half years the PlayStation 4 event was the first time a trailer had been seen in public.

It was hugely impressive too, and absolutely nothing like Braid. No doubt it’ll be compared to Portal, in that it’s also a first person puzzle game, but in gameplay terms there didn’t seem to be any similarities. It was hard to tell exactly what was going on but most of the puzzles in the trailer seemed to involve mazes and other physical puzzles.

The context wasn’t clear but the graphics were excellent, from an autumnal forest, to a damp looking mangrove swamp, and an arid desert. The game will apparently be open world, with a camera shot at the end immediately reminding us of Myst. Blow promises that you’re never more than 20 seconds away from a new experience and that the game is absolutely ‘filler free’.

Quantic Dream demoYou’d never believe Qunatic Dream wasn’t a Sony-owned company, considering how closely the two work – so it was no surprise to find David Cage popping up on stage to show off a tech demo. It was probably one of the most impressive of the night, even though it was just an old man’s face. The subtlety of his emotions and the complete lack of uncanny valley was hugely convincing although as ever it was unclear whether it was part of a new game or literally just a tech demo. Cage’s current project is Beyond: Two Souls and there was no indication that this would be appearing on anything but the PlayStation 3.

Media Molecule project
One of the interesting things about the PlayStation 4 unveil is that not only was the PS Vita mentioned quite a bit but so to was the PlayStation Move motion controller. LittleBigPlanet makers Media Molecule wouldn’t put a name to their new project, but stated that its goal was to ‘record your dreams’.

According to them the best way of doing this was to use a Move controller (or two according to the footage of them working at their studio) to create 3D models. We’re not sure what the creations of less talented artists would look like but the strange demonstration ended with them creating a larger diorama and then controlling puppet-like characters on a guitar, keyboard, and drums.

What this was all meant to amount to we’re not sure, but the Media Molecule devs certainly seemed pleased with it all. Although anything that reminds us of Wii Music is always going to be a bit of a worry.

Deep Down
All of the above titles were implied to be published by Sony but they also had plenty of third party developers on call to promote the PlayStation 4. The first was Capcom with a brand new IP called Deep Down (although that’s only a tentative title). The game is being created in parallel with a new graphics engine called Panta Rhei – and evolution of the existing MT Framework technology.

The facial animation shown in a real-time cut scene was almost as impressive as the Qunatic Dream demo, while the game itself looked like a cross between Dark Souls and Capcom’s own Dragon’s Dogma. There seemed to be three main characters: a monk, warrior, and an elfin archer, who were co-operating to take down a dragon.

The graphics were superb throughout and there was a clear implication that the game followed very much in Dark Souls’s super challenging footsteps. The demo ended with what seemed to be Street Fighter creator Yoshinori Ono asking for help from another player, implying a strong co-operative element.

Final Fantasy
Next on stage was Square Enix with a peculiar presentation that consisted of nothing but the Agni’s Philosophy from E3 last June. It was revealed to be running real-time on PlayStation 4 hardware but other than that it was exactly the same as the previously seen footage.

Square Enix didn’t acknowledge this, but the brand director of Final Fantasy did appear on stage to say that a new Final Fantasy game would be unveiled at this year’s E3. Although he stopped short of saying it would be a PlayStation 4 exclusive.

Watch Dogs
Although it also had been seen at E3 last year the real-time demo for Ubisoft’s Watch Dogs was brand new and arguably the most impressive thing at the whole event (we’d say it was between that and Deep Down). The level of detail in the simulated city was absolutely astounding, and all the more so because it was being used as part of a proper game and not just a tech demo.

Our original preview describes how the game takes place in the near future, with you playing an anti-hero who can invade the privacy of anyone he meets by hacking their mobile devices. You’re implied to be doing so for good though and this new demo showed you stalking around looking for trouble, and finding it with a disreputable looking man haranguing a woman in a back alley.

You threaten him with a gun, at which point he takes off on foot and an exhilarating chase ensues through Chicago. You seem to have some sort of bullet time effect at your disposal as you cause a fuse box to explode in your target’s path, giving you enough time to catch up to him and batter him with a nightstick.

As police arrive you’re able to raise some bollards to total their car and then shoot out the tyres of another squad car. You then climb a building and cause an elevated train to stop in its tracks (literally), before jumping on top and manipulating a CCTV camera along the way.

Watch Dogs may have been one of the first next gen games to be unveiled last year but even now it still looks the most impressive, in terms of both visuals and emergent gameplay.

Diablo III
Arguably the biggest surprise of the night was World Of Warcraft makers Blizzard taking to the stage to announce a version of Diablo III for both the PlayStation 3 and 4. They didn’t show any footage, but they did confirm you could now directly control your character (instead of using a mouse) and that there was an offline four-player co-op version on the same machine.

It was strongly implied that both Diablo III and any other Blizzard games on consoles would be PlayStation exclusives, but it was never actually said out loud – which makes us immediately suspicious A more detailed look at the game was promised for the PAX East event in Boston, which starts on March 22.

Destiny
The final game to take to be unveiled was relatively predictable, given the revelations of last week from Halo creators Bungie. Although the game has already been confirmed for PlayStation 3, Bungie and Activision appeared at the event to confirm that the PlayStation 4 version would be coming out at the same time, and with PlayStation exclusive features. Although they never actually said that the Xbox 360 version wouldn’t be first – as implied by a previously leaked legal contract.

Bungie on a PlayStation console is a big deal, considering all the Halo games were Xbox exclusives, and we even got a PlayStation 4 specific trailer with a few seconds extra of in-game footage.

We’re sure this week’s event will open the floodgates in terms of other announcements but the above were the only confirmed games announced for the PlayStation 4. However, there was also a talking heads video reel of famous developers including God Of War: Ghost Of Sparta makers Ready at Dawn, Tim Schafer’s Double Fine, Randy Pitchford from Borderlands creator Gearbox, Rock Band creators Harmonix, DmC Devil May Cry makers Ninja Theory, Uncharted’s Naughty Dog, Gran Turismo developer Polyphony Digital, and PixelJunk’s Q-Games.

It’s highly likely that all of these will also be making games for the PlayStation 4, but even if they’re not Sony was also able to boast over 70 other publishers and developers. With that kind of support and the quality of these early demos, even the ones for unwarranted sequels, it’s hard not to feel optimistic about the PlayStation 4 at this point.